Deck building games are still a rather new breed of board game. I’m always shocked when I’m reminded that the granddaddy, old geezer of deck builders, Dominion, is not even ten years old yet; however, its safe to say that the genre has made a big splash and there are deck builders at every turn clawing at your wallet like some massive horde of raving undead screaming “BRAAAAINSSSSS…and don’t forget to shuffle well….”

It’s pretty clear that the market for deck builders has not wavered in the slightest as more and more games get released with countless expansions. Deck builders have a way of forming an almost cult like presence with its followers. There are purists that insist that Dominion is the end all, be all and every game that has come after are just wannabes, while others have latched on to highly interactive deck builders like Star Realms and then there are the new kids on the block…deck builders with a game board! Woah!

So where does that put Draconis Invasion, the new deck builder from designer Jonathan Jeffrey Lai and Keji Inc.? Let’s find out.

I think we need to get something out of the way right off the bat. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that Draconis Invasion is clearly inspired by its great granddaddy, Dominion. It just has a lot of similarities. Is that a bad thing? Yes and no.

The similarities are seen in a lot of deck builders of this ilk. The core mechanic of using a starting hand to slowly build a better deck throughout the course of the game is here. A fixed market of better cards that you want is there. Junk cards are often put in your deck which may inhibit a turn you’ve been setting up for. In this game, they call them Terror cards and we will get to those in a second because they are much more important in this game than others. There are three types of cards: money or gold, action cards, and attack cards…wait…attack cards? Oh yes, my pretties, be patient for a moment.

So it has the basic formula for a deck building game. But then it does some things that make it stand out just enough without trying to jam a bunch of NEW, SHINY STUFF down your throat.

And I appreciate what they have done here.

On a turn in Draconis, you can play a single action card from your hand to do cool stuff like trash junky cards or draw cards or give other players terror cards (I suggest you cackle wildly while doing that) and then you can do one of a few options. You can buy an action or defender card from the open market with your gold. The more expensive the card is, the better it is usually. That’s a pretty standard, yet essential part of any deck builder. It lets you hop in the driver seat and attempt to build the best deck you possibly can.

And now get ready for some different stuff.

The second thing you might do on your turn is get new campaign cards. These cards act like secret agendas. Accomplish whatever task the card says to do and you will get bonus points at the end of the game. I love it when games do things like this. They help direct your game should you choose to pursue a secret quest dealt to you.

What kinds of things do these secret missions, campaign cards want you do, you ask? They simply want you to kill more stuff!

You see the way you get points in Draconis is a little different. There are big hulking monsters that are called Invaders. You wanna kill em and kill em good. You do this with your attack/ defender cards that you’ve been acquiring from the market. Kill a creature and its worth points at the end of the game. The secret missions on your campaign cards will grant you bonuses if you kill specific monsters. It’s all very simple until you realize that your Defenders are super greedy monsters as well! That’s right. Nothing is free in the game of Draconis Invasion (well…except those cursed Terror cards that I’m gonna get to…I promise). Those Defenders will help you, but you have to pay them with a specified amount of gold from your hand. This is a great design move because it forces players to really diversify their deck through the choices they make in market purchases.

Okay…time to talk about the Terror cards. Because I really think this is my favorite part of Draconis. Terror cards are junk cards that don’t help you do anything at all. They just occupy a space in your hand where a better card could have been. You get these from a variety of places, sometimes self inflicted…but that’s not the cool part. The Terror cards act as a crazy train of a game timer. Every time somebody plays a terror card from their hand this evil little D6 die goes up once. If it ever ticks up to 6, then an event card is revealed. These are cards that punish the players, especially the player that is currently in first. It’s an awesome catch up mechanic that you don’t see often in this style of deck builder. It also acts as a timer because there is a limited amount of event cards and when they run out, the game ends. So it leads to some interesting situations. Sure you want to give your opponents lots of terror cards, but at the same time it will dramatically speed the game up and if you aren’t ready for that it could blow back up in your own face!

On top of all that, Draconis Invasion is a simply stunning game. The artwork is top notch, components are great, the custom terror die is a nice touch, and it even came with nifty labeled dividers for every card type. It’s definitely not lacking in the production department.

So let’s run Draconis Invasion through the FRAK! Test.

Fun? It is. I’ve enjoyed playing Draconis a good deal. It’s simplicity is nice and it certainly would be a great deck builder to start with. The player interaction is pretty minimal but I think that’s okay for this style of deck builder.

Replayability? There’s a lot of variety here since you get to select what cards go into the market. Play with a different market and you are playing a different game. There are a lot of different cards in the base game alone and seeing how half the box is empty I see expansions are inevitable.

Affordability? It costs about $50 or so which is pretty standard for these bigger box deck builders. I’d say based on the art alone the game is worth that and the high replayability ensures you will get your hard earned moneys worth.

Keep? Totally. This one will see play at my table. Is it one I will grab all the time? Maybe not, but since it’s so accessible when it does hit the table we will be able to get down to business very quickly without having to consult the rule book every time. That’s a small blessing but a big part of why I like Draconis Invasion in the first place. If you enjoy easy riding, smooth deck builders with great production, look no further.

DISCLAIMER: The copy of Draconis Invasion used in this review was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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On today’s episode of Tim RAGE Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to try something new. We are going to do a mock draft for Age one of a three player game. My two opponents will be randomly selecting their cards, but we are going to be picking ours through some extreme analysis and examination.

Welcome to the BLOODY DRAFT RAGE (Age 1 Edition)!

Here’s our initial hand of 8 cards. Looking at these there are three that really stand out, the Sea Serpent (the most underrated monster in my opinion), Loki’s Domain, and the grey quest card. The Sea Serpent is such a great monster because it really works with a variety of strategies, while Loki’s Domain always lends itself to the very viable Loki strategy of purposefully killing off your own dudes. This particular quest card has my eye because it is a grey quest, which contains the Anolang province. Why does that matter? Because Anolang is a three space province, which makes it much easier to gain control of and to continue controlling throughout the remainder of the game.

I want all three, but my gut says go with the Sea Serpent. Plus it’s fun to screech obnoxiously when you plop it down in a fjord.

Now for hand number 2. This one is much easier. I only have eyes for two cards here and they both call upon the always helpful, Frigga. Frigga’s Succor, which is in my opinion the single most powerful card in the game, immediately grabs my attention. Flooding the board with free warriors not only helps you overpower your foes, but anything that provides free stuff in this game is a “must have.” Frigga’s Charm is the clear second choice here. The RAGE cost reduction is extremely helpful in so many strategies; unfortunately, Charm was paired with Succor and I’ve gotta go with Succor here. I can’t let my opponents have that card.

Hand 3. I want those quests. But then I see more free stuff! Frigga is really smiling down on us right now and she presents us with the opportunity for an unkillable Mystic! Keep in mind that when we play the free mystic we will also get a free warrior courtesy of Frigga’s Succor, which we so cleverly just drafted. Free is good!

Hand 4 presents us with a more difficult decision. We still don’t have any quests…we also drafted the Sea Serpent so Loki’s Dragons would be very helpful for some bonus points in case he dies…but…Loki’s Domain is the no brainer here based on what we have drafted thus far. We don’t have any battle cards, we are going to be dangling around a lot of little chump warriors…it’s gotta be Loki’s Domain for the extra points for some fun in Valhalla. We also don’t want those other fools getting their paws on this one!

Hand 5 comes around and I can’t believe it. Our moronic, brainless opponents have passed us Frigga’s Charm. In the words of those seagulls from Finding Nemo…”MINE!”

Next hand, please!

Now for the final hand! Frigga’s Grace looks good, but I don’t see us winning too many pillages, so that’s out. Forget Tyr’s Smash at this point and we get our first quest card. We can possibly accomplish the quest, but we can also safely use this card during battles in case we accidently win a pillage. We wouldn’t want to lose any of our awesome upgrade cards that way since the winner of a pillage loses whatever card they played.

So here it is! Our hand of cards for the first age of another sure to be awesome game of BLOOD RAGE! I think we did pretty well here. We aren’t going to make many points this Age and we probably won’t upgrade too many of our stats (Rage, Axes, or Horns), but our foundation for Age 2 & 3 is going to be so solid I’m not too worried about that. With this hand we want to establish a presence on the board and attempt to pick off some easy pillages at the beginning of Age 2. Our cards are going to provide a lot of free things so if we happen to get the opportunity to raise a stat I would increase the horns, so that we can have lots and lots of dudes on the map.

Tune in next time and we will mock draft Age 2!! Until then, KEEP ON RAGING!!!

Designer Bruno Cathala puts a twist on the classic game of dominoes placing players into the roles of lords seeking new lands to expand their kingdoms in the latest game from Blue Orange Games, Kingdomino. Kingdomino is a tile-laying game for 2-4 players that plays in 15 minutes.

The object of the game is to build a kingdom in a 5×5 grid consisting of various land types…….wheat fields, pastures, lush forests, mines, lakes, and mountains in order to score prestige points. Some tiles are more valuable than others so players will be competing with each other for the prime lands. This is performed by drafting dominoes from a lineup and adding them one at a time over the course of several rounds.

OVERVIEW OF GAME PLAY

The game comes with 48 dominoes, 4 starting tiles, 4 castles, and 8 kings (2 in each color). At the start of the game each player will choose a color, take that color castle and king(s) and a start tile. The castle is placed on top of the start tile. When playing with only 2 players, both kings will be used by each player, otherwise use 1 king. The dominoes are shuffled face down and depending on the number of players, some dominoes may be removed. The dominoes used in the game are then placed back in the game box to hold them. The unused dominoes are placed off to the side.

The game box also holds the dominoes that will be used for the game.

Each round 4 dominoes will be placed out to be drafted. The first round the first 4 dominoes are placed next to the box and arranged face down in numerical order.

Tiles are arranged in numerical order.

The dominoes are flipped over so players can start drafting them.

The dominoes are flipped over revealing the land types.

Each domino will have either 1 or two land types on them. Some land types will have crowns on them. The crowns are very important. They are used in final scoring of the game and any property that does not have at least one crown will not be worth anything.

The first round, player order is determined by a random pull of the kings from a player’s hand. As the kings come out, players will select one of the dominoes available and place their king on it. For the rest of the game, turn order will be determined by the order of the kings on the line of dominoes. In the picture below, blue will select the next domino first.

Players have selected their desired dominoes.

Once the players have selected their desired dominoes, 4 new dominoes are added next to the ones previously selected, again arranging them in numerical order, then flipping the dominoes over to reveal the land types.

Each round 4 new dominoes come out, placed in numerical order.

In player order, each player will move their king to one of the new dominoes that came out. This will determine the turn order for the following round, thus creating this “moving sidewalk” of dominoes. This process for drafting order will repeat for each round of the game.

The next round, blue will be selecting a new domino 2nd in turn order.

The domino that was previously selected is then taken and added to the player’s kingdom. There are restrictions for placing the dominoes to the kingdom. Each domino must either connect to the start tile

Add a new domino to the kingdom. The castle is considered wild and can connect any land type.

or connect it to another domino matching at least one of its land types forming land groups called properties.

New dominoes must match up to at least one land type.

When building the kingdom, the dominoes must be able to fit into a 5×5 grid. If a domino does not fit or cannot be placed due to non-matching land types, that domino is discarded. So at times at the end of the game, a player’s kingdom will not completely fill a 5×5 grid.

A completed kingdom at the end of the game.

At the end of the game, players are going to score points for their properties that contain one or more crowns. The way scoring is performed is: 1 point per square of that property, multiplied by the number of crowns in it. There may be multiple properties for each land type. Properties without crowns have no score. Using the picture above, here is the scoring for this player….

Mountains (tan) – 1 point [1 crown x 1 square]

Mines (black) – 18 points [3 squares x 6 crowns]

Lakes (blue) – 2 points [2 tiles x 1 crown]

Wheat fields (yellow) – 14 points [7 squares x 2 crowns]

Forests (green) – 5 points [4 squares x 1 crown + 1 square x 1 crown]

The winner is the player with the most points. In case of tie, the player with the most expansive property regardless if it has a crown or not.

The game does include some additional rules than can be used to make the game more strategic. Players can mix and match the variant rules to their tastes.

IMPRESSIONS

PROS

Great component quality

15 minute playing time

Nice tile drafting mechanic

Variant rules to add strategy

Great price point

CONS

Low level of complexity may limit audience

Players can have “tunnel-vision”

No direct player interaction

Blue Orange is know for putting out family style games that develop skills while playing them, and their offering of Kingdomino delivers, developing spatial skills to all who play, restricting players to fitting their dominoes into a 5×5 grid. Each turn, players need to be mindful of the dominoes they are selecting, both to fit into the grid as well as to enable a property to be scored. While speaking about the publisher, the production quality for Kingdomino is awesome. The box size is compact with a functional insert that is used during game play. The domino tiles are very thick and durable with a nice glossy finish on both sides. The artwork from Cyril Bouquet is wonderful for this game making it look nice as it is on the table. The king figures are great and the 3-D castles add a nice element to the game. All this in a game with an MSRP less than $20.

Thick tiles, glossy finish, and nice figures add to the charm of Kingdomino.

Bruno Cathala continues to show his width and variety in game design ideas. Here, Bruno takes the classic game of dominoes, and adds a twist to create Kingdomino, making it a nice addition to the tile-laying games on the market. Although, building territories using tiles is nothing new, Kingdomino presents itself as a quick-playing territory building game that feels fresh thanks to the interesting tile drafting method in the game. Overall, the higher numbered dominoes have better offerings, and players have to weight the risk vs. the rewards when selecting dominoes because it has an effect on turn order for the following round. Is it worth the gamble to take a less desirable domino in exchange for selecting first the next round? Or do I sacrifice what I will have to choose from the next round in order to select a domino this round that will guarantee me a scoring opportunity at the end of the game? Do I draft a domino that I may not necessarily need, but it will totally mess up my opponents score? These questions are what engages the players in the game and to me broadens the audience that Kingdomino will appeal to.

This game has a 15 minute playing time listed on the box and yes it does play in 15 minutes. This game flows so smoothly and it is quick! And in those 15 minutes the game offers a fun experience.

I see Kingdomino best fitting in with families as well as casual gamers, however, I think the low level of complexity will have some of the more serious gamers passing on this one. I think there is enough game there to keep players engaged because each round you have to think about what you are doing as well as being aware of what other players are doing at the same time. However, this game does not have direct player interaction so it can feel like multiplayer solitaire and players can easily get “tunnel vision,” meaning that they can become focused only on their player area and miss what other players are doing.

If you are not paying attention, your opponents can score big points!

I do like the added variant rules that slightly increase the strategy of the game by adding different scoring options. It does scale well and plays nicely at all player counts. I am not sure if Kingdomino has the legs to stand up to a lot of plays or not, but I am enjoying it now.

With an MSRP of $17.99 I do feel you can get enough plays of the game to justify purchasing it. Couple that with a 15 minute play time and to me Kingdomino is a game that I would recommend adding to your game library to scratch that itch for a quick tile-laying game.

*Disclaimer* The copy of Kingdomino used in this review was provided by the publisher for the purpose of review.

I describe myself as a more-than-casual gamer, enjoying the hobby and sharing it with friends and family. I am married with children who play games with me. My series of video reviews called "To The Table" looks at games from a family perspective, focusing on the benefits each game offers. I am working to promote the gaming hobby, getting everyone involved. To contact me, my email is d-c-taylor@sbcglobal.net. Or, click my name above for my contact info.